Seoul, Eventually

I haven’t made it to Seoul yet, which is probably weird considering how much I think about going. Been to Japan the way I wanted. Dragged myself through America. Canada was fine, you know? Pretty enough. But South Korea keeps showing up in my head, never quite landing.

It’s the contradiction that pulls at me. The place is saturated with technology in a way that actually feels alive—not just gadgets everywhere but a real embrace of what’s possible. And then there’s this other thing underneath: the constant presence of the north, the threat that’s permanent enough that people just live with it like weather. They go to work, fall in love, complain about their lives. The border’s close. It could all change. But it hasn’t, so they keep going.

Photographer Duran Levinson spent time there recently and came back with work about young South Koreans—the ones starting to refuse what their parents accepted. His photographs show people awake, intentional, pushing back against systems that want them to obey and keep quiet. Not revolution, something quieter and stranger. The kind of awakening that happens when a generation decides the old script doesn’t fit.

What I like about his work is it doesn’t sanitize anything. These are kids with style and attitude and something to say. There’s real life in those images.

Whether the city would feel that way if I was actually there, I don’t know. Whether the vibe would hit the same or if photographs just make everything look better, that’s the question I want answered. I want to stand in Seoul and see if it feels like being in the future while living under a permanent threat, and if that somehow becomes just Tuesday.